


goodbye kiss

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 13:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5419544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will is leaving today.</p>
            </blockquote>





	goodbye kiss

**Author's Note:**

> For my 25 days of fic and the 100 ways to say I love you prompt: Jemma/Will "Can I kiss you?"
> 
> AU where the bottle didn't break and wasn't even necessary. Jemma and Will made it across the canyon and through the portal safe and sound.

Will’s leaving today. That’s Jemma’s first thought when she wakes up. It swirls in her brain while she prepares her morning tea, follows her down to the labs, dogs her every step it seems like. And it’s silly, really. Will’s going _home_. He’s going to see his family and give them the very happy news that the empty grave in their family plot is not, as of yet, necessary. He’s going to be with people he loves and who love him. He’s going to go live his life. It’s all very good.

And yet every time the fact repeats in Jemma’s brain, she feels a tug of discomfort. By nine-thirty, her stomach is in knots and she has to give up work entirely or risk a minor biohazard.

All in all, she’s a mess, and it must show on her face because no one bothers her as she heads down to the garage to say her goodbyes. She twists her hands, wondering what is appropriate to say to a man who quite literally saved her life.

It shouldn’t be this hard to think of something. She’s no stranger to being rescued (and doesn’t that sound mildly pathetic? But the fact of the matter is that in her line of work, there is quite a lot of peril and everyone needs saving on occasion). She never had this much trouble finding what to say to Bobbi or Trip or that other person who she will not think of because she already feels bad enough, thank you.

She doesn’t want him to go. It’s selfish and wholly unlike her but that’s the truth. She still doesn’t feel entirely safe, even inside the Playground, until she sees him in the mornings, which might account for why she’s so rattled today. She’s even, shamefully, bugged his temporary quarters to ease her own adjustment to being back on Earth - but only so that she can hear him breathing at night. It was terribly reassuring after so many weeks of being utterly alone to hear another person in the next cave and, though she finds silence preferable to white noise these days, she can’t sleep comfortably without knowing there’s someone else nearby.

She supposes she could bug one of the others’ rooms, or even just find a recording of someone breathing. Surely that sort of thing is available online and she even thought of it when she was slipping the bug into the spine of _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_. (She got him the entire collection as a welcome home gift, as he hadn’t been on Earth to get swept up in the craze. He even obliged her by reading through them all during their mutual recovery; often he’d read them to her when they spent afternoons together in isolation, recovering from the stress of so many people after so long.) But it seemed strange, somehow to listen to a stranger’s breathing. That it didn’t seem strange to bug her friend’s gift likely says a great deal about how mired in spy craft she’s become - or perhaps about how pathetically dependent she is on Will.

The truth is that she’s terrified of tomorrow. Hell, she’s terrified of the next few hours. How is she meant to go on without his smiles and his jokes and his mere presence? And how is he meant to survive out in the world when he still has so much to catch up on? He’s forever asking questions about this and that, but who will answer them when he’s surrounded by strangers with no idea what he’s been through?

He _can’t_ leave yet, he’s not ready. And that is precisely what she intends on saying when she enters the garage.

He’s not difficult to find, he’s near the entrance, sitting on a truly impressive pile of luggage for a man who came to them with no earthly possessions. (Bobbi insisted on taking him shopping, which Jemma imagines was more an excuse for her to leave the base than to find him new clothes.) He’s laughing with one of the technicians. He looks happy. Excited. He’s ready, after fourteen years, to go home.

Jemma’s heart sinks, only to rise again when Will, as if by some instinct, looks her way. His smile doesn’t precisely _grow_ , in fact it shrinks a little because he’s no longer laughing, but it does grow warmer, more personal. It fills her up, crushing down all the anxiety she’s been feeling. He doesn’t smile at the others like this.

“There’s my hero,” he says. The technician makes himself scarce and Will leaves his luggage pile to approach her. There’s something heavy in his gaze and she thinks it might be goodbye. When he stops, still several feet from her, the distance feels wider than the gulf they crossed to reach the portal. “You got us home, just like you promised, and now I guess it’s time for me to finish the trip.” He tips his head towards the waiting Quinjet. Bobbi’s going to be flying him and is already inside, working her way through the pre-flight checklist.

Jemma’s tongue feels like lead. The plea that he stay feels inadequate for what she’s feeling, to say nothing of how cruel it would be. With no idea how to fill the silence, she looks away.

“Jemma?” he asks, sounding a little hurt. “Aren’t you gonna say-”

She can’t let him say that horrible, hateful word, she just _can’t_. Desperation to keep it from being voiced is the only explanation for why she steps into not only the space he’s left between them, but into his personal space as well. “Can I kiss you?” she asks and her breath seizes in her chest at the request. She doesn’t know where it came from. Except that she does.

She thought, on the planet, that it was the isolation. Sometimes her thoughts would go down unsavory rabbit trails without her permission or her dreams would leave her unable to look him in the eye the next day. And when her attachment to him continued after their return, it was only natural, wasn’t it? Who else would she cling to but the man who was her lifeline for the last four months?

Fitz. Obviously. That’s what everyone’s been thinking, she can see it in their faces. They expected her to hold fast to him and never let go, and the revelation that there’s someone else she might take comfort in is unsettling to all of them.

To her as well, _especially_ as the seconds draw out following her request.

She feels stupid. And foolish. The same way she did every time she caught Ward staring at Skye. Because, as it turns out, she has a crush. A silly, infantile crush that is unfair to Will and her and _everyone_ , and she should just leave now before she embarrasses them both further.

“Okay,” Will says awkwardly.

Of course he’s a gentleman about it. Which means now she has to go through with it. Stupid brain. Why did it have to ask that of all things?

He bends slightly so she can better reach and maybe she should go to one side, press a quick kiss to his cheek and be done, but this is this the only chance she’ll ever have to kiss him, isn’t it? She can’t quite bring herself to be entirely chaste. So she _does_ go to one side, but she purposefully catches the corner of his mouth. Her kiss lingers there longer than necessary. She forces herself to pull away, but doesn’t do more than hover a hair’s breadth from him. She might, with a great deal of willpower, find it in her to move farther, but doesn’t get the chance.

Will makes a sound like the groaning of an overtaxed beam and turns his head to catch her in a true kiss. His lips are insistent against hers. His hands don’t go anywhere inappropriate for so public a setting, but they hold her as though she is the most precious thing he’s ever held and he intends never to let her go.

She is not so gentle, she thinks, but he makes no protest when she clings and holds him tight enough she’s sure to leave bruises.

The kiss might last a moment or an hour, she has no idea, but when it ends neither of them lets the other go. Will’s eyes are still closed and though he seems to have enjoyed himself, he also looks uncertain about how he’s meant to feel about that. Jemma’s calves and ankles protest her standing on tip-toe and she uses the excuse to put a little more weight onto Will’s chest. That gets him smiling in earnest, the same smile he has just for her.

He stares for a moment, drinking her in just as she is him, before asking, “Do you wanna come?”

“Huh?” she asks, utterly confused. There is no possible way he’s propositioning her in the middle of the garage with her fellow agents milling about, pretending they don’t notice the two of them snogging like teenagers.

Of course, the garage. He’s leaving. The kiss was enough to make her forget, which is quite promising, she thinks.

“With me?” he asks around his smile, which seems to have become a permanent feature. “I was kind of nervous about being on my own - being away from you,” he adds softly while his fingers do lovely things along her spine (she’s not certain he even knows he’s doing it, which is completely unfair), “but if you wouldn’t mind spending a little more time with me…”

“And doing more of that?” she asks because it’s best to be clear about these things.

“Maybe a lot more of that?” he asks with some of that cheek she loves so well.

She kisses him again, quick this time, and pulls away when he’s too shocked to stop her. “I’ll be back in ten minutes. Don’t you dare leave without me.”

He shakes himself out of his surprise to call after her, “It’ll take you ten minutes to pack?”

“Don’t be silly,” she yells over the sound of trucks and machinery that filter between them, “I’m a SHIELD agent, I have an emergency bag ready to go at all times!” She has three, actually. One for another HYDRA or other SHIELD situation which requires significant force, one for a disaster which will require her skills as a pseudo-physician more than anything, and one for last minute undercover missions. She’ll be grabbing the undercover bag, as it has more clothing and far fewer disturbing accessories. It also has the sundress Bobbi forced her to try on during Will’s trip to the mall, the one that made Will disappear back into his changing room without getting their opinion on the shirt he was modeling.

She’ll enjoy seeing his reaction to it when he can’t escape her so easily, but not more than she’ll enjoy getting to stay close by his side a while longer.

 


End file.
